Quiet Time

It's quiet time.  Quiet time is mine, one hour that I can do whatever I want and not have to worry about what the children are doing.

I could catch up on a show.  I could fold one of the 37 loads of laundry waiting to be folded.  I could waste time on the internet.  Usually I am doing one or more of these things.

But not today.  Today I am listening.  I am straining my ears for the sounds the children are making.

They are each behind closed doors, wrapped up in their own little world.  Bunny is playing with her dogs, Lion his superheros.  Their play is imaginative.  They tell stories.  They make up voices.

I drink up the sounds they are making.  I store away the way the stories are told.  Their voices open up the beauty of their worlds.

I move closer to their closed doors.  I don't want them to know I am listening.  Bunny is likely to shut down if she heard me.  This is hers, not mine.  Lion is the opposite.  He craves an audience.  He would fling open the door and demand my presence.  His becomes ours.

I do not stay long.  I cannot.  It is theirs, I must be contented with the glimpse I have stolen.

Sometimes

Sometimes mommies get cranky. Sometimes mommies aren't all the way awake. Sometimes mommies would rather sit at home than do something fun.

Sometimes I cringe at the suggestion of a trip to the beach. Sometimes all I think about is the mess. The sand will get everywhere. It takes forever to get sand out of Lion's hair.

Sometimes I say no. Sometimes I miss out on the beautiful moments.

Sometimes I don't. Sometimes saying yes is the most important thing. Sometimes letting go is totally worth it.

Sometimes life is perfect.

Sideline Reporter

I love capturing moments in my kids' lives. I always have my camera or my phone with me, ready to snap away.

Trips to the park often result in photos like these, capturing the joy of the moment.







I cherish these photos I really do. But often I wonder if my kids will look back and wonder, "Momma where were you? Why aren't you in any of the pictures?" And I wonder if my explanation that I was behind the camera will suffice. Why wasn't I in the picture? Why wasn't I in the middle of all the fun?

So last weekend I decided to place myself squarely in the middle. I ran. I played. I slid down the slides. And I have the pictures to prove it.






Or maybe I should just let Frink take the camera every now and then.

Today

Today I wear purple.

Today Mike and Heather will bury little Maddie. Today I wear purple to honor Maddie, to honor her life and her memory. Today I wear purple to stand with Mike and Heather.

Today I hug my child just a little bit tighter, just a little bit longer.

Today another mother knows the pain of losing a child. Again I do not know her but my heart breaks for her loss, for the loss of her son Thalon.

I know that words are not enough. But, today, words are all I have for Mike and Heather, for Shana and her family, for the countless others who have know the pain of losing a child.

Today I stand with you.

Today I honor the memory of your sweet children.

Today I wear purple

Misty Watercolored Memories

(Sorry to put that song in your head, well not really because its been in mine for a while now.)

When we become new parents we take photo after photo of our children. We document their every move. Each new stage is greeted with a production worthy of a Hollywood movie. We need to record it. We want to preserve these moments for eternity.

Why do we do this? Is it so we can show our children, when they are older, what perfect angels they were? Is it so we can embarrass our children, when they are older, by showing their friends and dates all the cute bath pictures? Is it so we can, when they are older, remember that they were small and cute and loved us unconditionally, not just when they want the car? Is it so that we can, when we are older, remember that we were once young and had no clue what to do?

Whatever the reason we cherish these photos (and videos). But the advent of the digital camera has created a problem. Sure you can take tons more pictures and you don't have to wait a week to see them. You can download them to your computer and share them with friends (and virutal friends) around the world with just a click of a button.

But what about when the unthinkable happens? What if your computer hard drive crashes before you've had a chance to back up your photos? They are gone, gone, gone. Sure you could spend a few thousand dollars to try and recover the photos but there is no guarantee that it will work.

This horrible problem happened to me. My computer crashed last spring. I waited and waited to get it fixed thinking that someone could help me recover the photos. I had a year and a half worth of photos of Bunny there. My heart broke.

Sure I'd printed out a few, but not enough. I was also lucky that my father has taken a bazillionty photos of her since she's been home. So we do have a record of most of the major events. But I don't have that many pictures of our trip to China. The trip where we became a family. That killed me.

I blogged our trip in real time and posted a few pictures of each day there. Another family had sent us a disc with pictures of her. So that was something. But was it enough? Will she be upset or angry with me if I don't have a photographic record of the trip? Will the video, the blog recollections and the few pictures be enough? I just don't know.

So here I am still waiting to get the hard drive replaced. I am leaning more and more towards replacing it. We need to have that computer back. I know that is the right thing to do. But still I wonder, should I make another attempt to recover the photos?

What would you do in my situation?